Apple’s move to Intel processors and its development of Boot Camp could triple its market share in the home markets, according to Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf.

He describes the dual boot and Intel move as a maybe: "Conjuring the magic that could double its market share."

Wolf notes his recent online survey of college students, which revealed a dramatic increase in the number of Macs Apple may potentially sell, but warns that these results may be biased because the "higher education market is one of the Mac’s strongholds."

Windows on Mac is killer blow

In response to these concerns, the analyst has committed further research across a sample of Windows users in the U.S. home market. The results of this survey aren’t as dramatic as the student research, but still support an optimistic outlook for the company.

His report observes: "The Mac arguably offers a superior computing experience to Windows because of the tight integration of its hardware and operating system." Despite this, he warns that attracting Windows users in significant numbers has been stalled by "the inability to run Windows apps on a Mac." This is precisely what Boot Camp addresses, he adds.

Wolf reports: "The second survey indicates that the new ambidextrous Mac could possibly triple its share in the home market and almost double its share worldwide." He also anticipates a boost in sales as a result of the "iPod halo."

U.S. home market share set to triple?

His second survey revealed that the likelihood of Windows users switching to Mac rose 8 percent on the basis that Macs can run Windows. "An increase which would triple Apple’s share in the home market and almost double its share worldwide," he said.

His report states that the potential switch rate among Windows users who have iPods is dramatically higher than that of those who don’t. "The Mac’s ability to run Windows gave the halo effect a terrific boost: The mean switch rate rose 12.6 percentage points to 20.2 percent," he wrote.

IPod halo boosts results

"This was over nine percentage points higher than the mean switch rate among non-iPod owners. From Apple’s perspective, the good news is that Windows users who owned iPods represented only 13 percent of all Windows users in our survey. As this percentage increases, the iPod could play an increasingly important role in Apple’s strategy to grow its market share."

The Windows home-user survey was conducted for Needham & Co. by market researchers at Harris Interactive. The results depended on 1,600 useful responses.